Whether it's adware or spyware, beware
It was good to read of junk e-mailers in handcuffs last week. But the federal government's just getting started in its campaign to clean up the Internet. The Federal Trade Commission has already chosen its next target: adware. Or spyware.
What you call it often depends on who you ask and how badly they hate it. But at least one state has moved to outlaw the stuff, and the FTC is holding hearings on how to regulate it. So maybe we'd better figure out exactly what we're talking about.
If you download the popular free e-mail program Eudora or the free version of the Opera Web browser, you'll get software that displays ads while you use it. The software company gets paid to run these ads, allowing it to make money from programs it gives away. This sort of ad-supported software has been around for years, and hardly anyone objects; after all, you can always buy the ad-free version of Eudora or Opera if you prefer.
But other programs, nearly all of them written for Windows-based PCs, use more obtrusive tactics. They don't just display ads in the program you downloaded; now the ads pop up on your screen at unexpected moments when you're surfing the Web or just typing a memo in your word processor. This is what most people mean by adware. Or spyware.
Many of these programs frequently phone home over the Internet--hence the view that these programs spy on Internet users. Not necessarily--some adware programs merely download new batches of pop-up ads with which to pester us. But some of them do a good deal more.
The Consumer Software Working Group, which includes tech firms like Microsoft and civil liberties outfits like the Center for Democracy and Technology, has compiled a list of adware's most egregious offenses. Some of these programs will seize control of the user's Web browser, changing his home page to one operated by the advertiser. Some will disable the browser's control buttons, forcing the Web surfer to view only sites controlled by the adware company.
It gets worse. There are cases of adware programs that scour people's computers in search of personal information, which is then relayed over the Internet to heaven only knows who. Other programs actually track the user's every keystroke, including credit card numbers and passwords. Sounds like spyware to me.
Perhaps worst of all, these programs are often installed without the user's knowledge. You can infect your computer with spyware by downloading an attractive piece of "free" software, which installs the ad program. Read the fine print of the software license and you may discover that your machine's about to be "added up," but the truth is often buried so deep you'd have to be a Harvard Law professor to ferret it out.
It's about time the government took a look at these seamy practices. But there's no guarantee that the politicians will do the right thing. Consider Utah, where the state has passed a new anti-adware law that is drawing fire from advertisers and privacy advocates alike.
Officials of WhenU.com, a New York-based adware company, say the law is unfair to their software. WhenU doesn't collect information on the user, they insist. Instead, it takes note of the websites a user visits, then flings out a pop-up ad for a relevant product. Go to an electronics site, and you may get an ad for stereo equipment.
Utah is home to 1-800-Contacts, a major seller of mail-order contact lenses. WhenU carries ads for rival contact shops. When a Web surfer with WhenU goes to the 1-800-Contacts website, up pops an ad for a competitor. 1-800-Contacts cried foul and the two companies have been suing each other for the past couple of years. WhenU is now suing the state of Utah, saying that its new adware law is little more than a political favor to 1-800-Contacts.
The Center for Democracy and Technology is just as hostile to the law. "We actually wrote a letter to the governor asking her to veto the Utah bill," said executive director Ari Schwartz. He thinks the law was drafted to protect Utah businesses, not the privacy rights of consumers, and it's hard to disagree. Only businesses -- 1-800-Contacts, for instance --can sue under the law. Consumers with an adware gripe are left in the cold. Indeed, the law was drafted so that Utah's attorney general can't sue either.
Schwartz testified before the FTC this week, hoping to encourage the federal government to take more consumer-friendly action against spyware. His group favors a federal law that will focus not on adware, but on the larger issue of Internet privacy. It's an appealing idea. A law protecting the privacy of Internet users would ban the worst spyware practices, while shielding us against a variety of other abuses, such as Web merchants who resell private information about their customers.
But for years, the Feds have hung back from passing such a law, and that's unlikely to change soon. In the meantime, we'll just have to protect ourselves.
Your PC may already be running the stuff. You can clean it up with a good adware-removal programs like Lavasoft's Ad-Aware. There's a free downloadable version for home users at www.lavasoftusa.com. It does a fine job.
Ad-Aware is one free program not tainted by ad software. But be very suspicious about installing anything else from the Net. Do your downloads at sites like www.download.com. This site does offer freeware with ad software built in, but at least it warns you. You can also protect yourself by running a Web search on the program before installing it to see if it's known to contain adware.
Or spyware. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. So play it safe; delete it all.
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.
